Health Care Insurance

Profit In a Free Market

OPEN LETTER TO A FRIEND

Dear Chris Pelly,

It was a pleasure speaking with you at the health care rally Saturday, August 29th.

You brought up a good point that I was not able to elaborate on at the time.

You stated that a patient was turned down by some business because "it would not be profitable to accept them." You provided this scenario as an example of why the health care industry needs more regulation.

The way I see it, this type of situation is only possible in an unfree market, which is what we have now in health care and insurance markets. In a free market, if a business does not satisfy consumer demand then more able competitors are attracked to enter the market, underbid their business with a superior offering, attract their customers away and expose them to bankruptcy.

Right now we have a heavily regulated health care system that inhibits entry, contrains operations, increases the cost of doing business and protects industry giants. This creates an unfree atmosphere in which to conduct business where only the biggest and well-connect corporations can afford to operate. These conditions encourage consolidation and the lobbying for legislative favors that would protect their businesses from competition.

Profit is what makes any enterprise worthwhile. Without the prospect of profit, businesses have no reason to offer products or services in the first place. In a costly, unfree and heavily regulated marketplace, the drive to maintain profitability becomes even more imperative -- and much more difficult. This government coercion causes business concerns to shift away from quality, service and price toward regulatory compliance, licensing requirements, risk and liability insurance, and 'cutting corners' to remain viable. They may even be encouraged to engage in unethical practices such as turning away worthy customers to avoid losses.

I would like to see a return to a free market in health care where competitors are not legally barred from entry and the widest possible array of options are available for the poor and wealthy alike.

Yours,

TIM PECK

"Competition, properly so-called, rests on the activity of separate, independent individuals owning and exchanging private property in the pursuit of their self-interest. It arises when two or more such individuals become rivals for the same trade." -George Reisman, The Objectivist, Aug. 1968

RELATED

Is Private Enterprise Predatory?
William Anderson | Mises Institute | 6/29/2000
Economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, both of the Austrian School, pointed out many times in their writings and speeches that firms can only prosper in a free market if they serve their customers. A company that does not provide its customers what they want will look elsewhere, something that will soon show up on the offending firm's balance sheets.

Glenn Beck Exposé

The New Republic: America's Future

Monday 8/24 A | 8/24 B | 8/24 C | 8/24 D | 8/24 E
Tuesday 8/25 A | 8/25 B | 8/25 C | 8/25 D | 8/25 E
Wednesday 8/26 A | 8/26 B | 8/26 C | 8/26 D | 8/26 E
Thursday 8/27 A | 8/27 B | 8/27 C | 8/27 D | 8/27 E
Friday 8/28 A | 8/28 B | 8/28 C | 8/28 D | 8/28 E



RELATED

Glenn Beck Hammers The White House
Erika Franzi | August 29, 2009
First, he is a bold voice for common sense in a world that often makes none whatsoever.

I'm Sorry I Voted For Obama
The purpose of this website is to tell America that former Obama supporters are no longer proud of their decision.

The Obama Deception [video]
HQ Full length version

Celebrating Oil

Celebrating Oil's 150th Birthday

August 27, 2009 is the 150th birthday of the oil industry.

A century and a half ago [1859], Edwin Drake successfully drilled the first commercial oil well. 150 years later, oil remains the lifeblood of our civilization. It fuels our ultra-mobile, globalized world. It provides the building-blocks for millions of life-enhancing petroleum products.

Yet “Big Oil” receives no appreciation. It is demonized; oil is called an “addiction” and a “pollutant” to get rid of.

The website IN DEFENSE OF OIL gives you the tools you need to appreciate the incredible, neglected value of oil, and to think clearly about oil’s role in foreign policy and environmental issues.



RELATED

Let's Celebrate Oil
Alex Epstein | Investor's Business Daily | August 27, 2009
In previous generations, the birth of the oil industry was celebrated, and deservedly so. Oil has sustained and enhanced billions of lives for more than 150 years by providing superior, affordable, ultraconvenient energy — and is as vital today as ever.

Peak Oil Is a Waste of Energy
Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak oil theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material.

Cap-n-Trade [video]
Barack Obama: "Under...a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

The Triumph and Tragedy of the Oil Industry
Alex Epstein | October 1, 2009
“The Triumph and Tragedy of the Oil Industry” tells the story of how scientists, inventors, engineers and, above all, businessmen transformed black glop into black gold—into the fuel that would power man’s transportation by car, boat, truck, airplane, space shuttle.

What Me Worry?

Obama to raise 10-year deficit to $9 trillion
By Jeff Mason | Reuters | August 21, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.


UPDATE 3 -White House, CBO see budget deficts for years ahead

WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. national debt will nearly double over the next 10 years as recession crimps government revenue while spending on retirement and medical benefits soars, official forecasts said on Tuesday.

Anti-War

What happened to the antiwar movement?

Byron York,

I read your column about the "anti-war" movement and I can't believe I am saying this, but I mostly agree with you.

The "anti-war" "left" was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the "anti-Republican War" movement.

While I agree with you about the hypocrisy of such sites as the DailyKos, I have known for a long time that the Democrats are equally responsible with the Republicans. That's why I left the party in May 2007 and that's why I ran for Congress against Nancy Pelosi in 2008.

I have my own radio show, "Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox," and I was out on a four-month book tour promoting the fact that it's not about Democrats or Republicans, but it's about the system.

Even if I am surrounded by a thousand, or no one, I am still working for peace.

Sincerely,

Cindy Sheehan

RELATED

Without Bush, media lose interest in war caskets
Byron York | Washington Examiner | September 29, 2009
The impassioned advocates of showing the true human cost of war grew tired of the story. Fewer and fewer photographers showed up. "It's really fallen off," says Lt. Joe Winter, spokesman for the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where all war dead are received. "The flurry of interest has subsided."

Sheehan returns to rebuke Obama
After spending weeks dogging George W. Bush's presidential vacations, anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is now trying to make life uncomfortable for President Barack Obama.

US service member killed in Afghanistan
Associated Press | August 28, 2009
The death brings to 45 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan this month, surpassing the 44 troops killed in July.

McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'
By Bob Woodward | Washington Post | September 21, 2009
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

whitehouse.gov

LTE: Public Option

Single-payer is still on table and more than an 'option'

Dear Editor,

In a recent AC-T editorial on the health care reform bill in Congress, ("Clearing up health debate confusion," Aug 11, 2009), the editor states that single-payer, as he puts it, "is not on the table."

The truth is that single-payer is indeed "on the table" so long as the public option is on the table. The "public option” is a one-way ticket to single-payer, government-run health care. It is designed to squeeze out private insurance providers and push insurance consumers into the government plan, leading to single-payer.

The President claims that the public option will keep private insurers honest. What it will in fact do is keep private insurers at a permanent disadvantage, leading to their extinction.

Single-payer means a government bureaucracy interfering in the private relationships between doctors and their patients. It is a subversion of the right to contract. A subversion of the right to use one's judgment to act in one's own best interest without interference. It is a subversion of the right of doctors, nurses and insurers to offer products and services to satisfied health care consumers for mutual benefit.

The healh care central planners understand full well that single-payer is not only on the table, it is their goal.

**UPDATE** September 1, 2009

This letter was also published in the Asheville Daily Planet.

RELATED

Public Option Schizophrenia
Yaron Brook | PajamasTV | August 21, 2009

Health Care Milestones

Stated Intentions

• Sen. Obama (2003 at AFL-CIO event): “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care system”
• Sen. Obama (3/24/07, at SEIU “Universal Health Care Forum”): “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process”
• Jan Schakowsky (4/18/09): “And next to me was a guy from the insurance company, who then argued against the public health insurance option, saying ‘it wouldn’t let private insurance compete’ — that ‘a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer.’ He was right! The man was right!”
• Barney Frank (7/27/09): “I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single-payer; that’s the best way to reach single-payer”
• Video

Name Changes

• Single-Payer Health Care
• Universal Health Care
• Health Care Reform
• Health Insurance Reform

Congress misses the pre-August deadline set by Obama for passing legislation. Can't find the votes among Democrats.

Can't shake the tags: socialized health care, government-run health care.

Nationwide Tea Parties wildly successful.

Health care reform protests abound.

August recess town hall meetings become contentious.

White House, Congress demonize reform opponents. "A year ago, Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama praised organizing, dissidents, and protest. Today they have become near-Nixonian in demonizing popular resistance to their collectivized health-care plans as mob-like, inauthentic, scripted, Nazi-like, and un-American."

Union thugs intimidate citizens. "Punch back twice as hard" replaces "Yes We Can."

Horror stories come from countries with socialized health care. "Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors."

Obama’s popularity plummets to 50 percent and lower in some polls.

Opponents Gain Support (8/13): In spite of hopes by proponents of reform that voters would be turned off by the sometimes ugly scenes, a poll yesterday from USA Today gave an indication that the debates were having the opposite effect. Some 34 per cent of respondents said the demonstrations had made them more sympathetic to the protesters, while 21 per cent said they were less sympathetic. In the all-important independents grouping, 35 per cent against 16 per cent said they were now more sympathetic to the protesters – a margin of more than two to one.

Frightened congressmen hold controlled tele-town hall meetings.

Obama holds series of desperation town halls with partisan plants (8/12).

Death Panel provision removed from Senate bill after Sarah Palin blogpost (8/13).

Former ABC correspondent Linda Douglass puts out desperate propaganda video for the White House to counter revealing Obama videos surfacing on YouTube.

Obama pulls the plug on flag@whitehouse.gov (8/17).

60,000 AARP resignations (8/17): About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul.

Gallup Poll: Conservatives Outnumber Liberals in 50 States (8/17).

White House caught spamming email accounts (8/18).

Public Option provision removed (8/18).

Obama Reaches New Double Digit Low in Popularity at -14

Nationwide Recess Rallies a huge success.

Blue Dog Democrats promise to block HR 3200. Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11) declares he will not vote in favor of the current HR 3200.

President Obama, pushed back on his heals, gives lackluster, last ditch health care pep talk to Congress (9/9).

Drudge reports: "At least 44 more moderate Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record in opposition to the current health care bill in the House, a Hill source claims. Likewise, at least 57 liberal Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record saying they will vote against a health care bill without a strong public option." (9/9)

Obama bumper stickers quietly disappearing.

Whole Foods

From: Tim Peck
To: customer.questions@wholefoods.com
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 3:47:47 PM
Subject: health care solutions

Dear Whole Foods,

I read the recent article on health care solutions by CEO John Mackey with great interest. I too believe that the government must reverse its inappropriate manipulation of the health care industry and turn to free market solutions to repair the problems that prior government intervention has created.

I believe that the government's only proper role is the protection of individual rights. Interference by the government in the health care and insurance industries violates individual rights by forcing unwilling participants to pay for a predatory collective, by pressing physicians and other independent professionals into involuntary servitude for the sake of some mysterious, shape-shifting and ultimately illusory "common good," and by dictating the terms upon which an insurer can operate. This regulatory interference causes the rising cost of health care and diminishing access to the quality and innovation that only the profit-motive can supply.

The "public option" and "single-payer" health care proposals being advanced by disinterested power-seeking central planners in Washington would mean a government bureaucracy interfering in the private relationships between doctors and their patients. It is a subversion of the individual's right to contract. It is a subversion of the right to use one's judgment to act in one's own best interest without interference. It is a subversion of the right of doctors, nurses and insurers to voluntarily offer products and services to satisfied health care consumers for their mutual benefit.

In addition to Mr. Mackey, economist George Reisman has also developed free market solutions to health care in his report analyzing the Clinton health care plan entitled "The Real Right to Medical Care Versus Socialized Medicine."

I thank Mr. Mackey for his rational contribution to the overwrought health care debate and for giving me yet another reason to patronize Whole Foods.

As philosopher Ayn Rand urged throughout her life, political and economic freedom are requirements of life. Statism serves to undermine those ends while capitalism serves to further them. Capitalism is not right because it works, it works because it is right.

TIM PECK
ASHEVILLE NC

RELATED

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Craig Biddle | Objective Standard | August 17, 2009
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, has an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal, in which he outlines several market-oriented changes that would substantially improve the quality of health care in America, multiply consumers’ options, and decrease health-care costs.

Tammy Goes Independent

Nope

Weaverville Annexation

"NOTICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATIONAL MEETING AND PUBLIC HEARING ON THE QUESTION OF ANNEXATION. (Aiken Road, Stoneybrook, Blueberry Hill and the Highlander Woodland Hills Area)

The public will take notice that, pursant to Chapter 160a, Part 2 the Town Council of the Town of Weaveville will hold a public informational meeting in the Council Chambers at 30 South Main Street at 6:00 p.m. on September 10, 2009 and a Public Hearing at 30 South Main Street at 6:00 p.m. on October 8, 2009 on the question of annexation of the territory described below..."

http://snipr.com/pyeyp

StopWeaverville website

Palin Types, Palin Scores

Irrelevant, has-been quitter Sarah Palin reforms health care by typin' stuff.

You betchya.



Concerning the Death Panels
Sarah Palin | Facebook | August 12, 2009

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care?

Finance Committee drops end-of-life provision
Michael O'Brien | The Hill | August 13, 2009

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.

RELATED

Obama's Senior Moment
Wall Street Journal | August 13, 2009
A lot of talk has centered on what Sarah Palin inelegantly called "death panels." Of course rationing to save the federal fisc will be subtler than a bureaucratic decision to "pull the plug on grandma," as Mr. Obama put it. But Mrs. Palin has also exposed a basic truth. A substantial portion of Medicare spending is incurred in the last six months of life.

Palin Wins
James Taranto | Wall Street Journal | August 14, 2009
From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far. A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate.

We are God's partners
Ben Smith | August 19, 2009
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."

Sorry folks, Sarah Palin is (partly) right
Michael Cannon | Detroit Free Press | August 19, 2009
No one ever accused Palin of being a health policy expert, and many found her hyperbolic term “death panel” off-putting. But that should not distract voters from this reality: President Obama has proposed a new body that would enhance Medicare’s ability to deny care to the elderly and disabled based on government bureaucrats’ arbitrary valuations of those patients’ lives.

The Death Book for Veterans
Jim Towney | Wall Street Journal | August 18, 2009
If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

New Tea Party Sign

RELATED

Obama’s Union Gestapo in Action
Tammy Bruce | August 7, 2009
I guess this is what they meant when Obama said Democrats should “punch back twice as hard” and then sent our union thugs to DeathCare townhalls. There is a background for such rhetoric and action–it’s called 1933 Germany.

Healthcare Reform Timeline

Credit: Alyson Hurt and Kathleen Masterson / NPR

The Financial Crisis

Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, has made video available of his 4.5 hour in-depth course:

"The Financial Crisis: What Happened and Why"



Over the last two years, we have experienced a devastating financial and economic crisis. Mainstream media and mainstream economists have blamed the crisis on a failure of “free markets.” This series of lectures, delivered at Objectivist Summer Conference 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts, sets the record straight.

[Technical Note: Click on each section of the lecture in the list to play.]

Activist Boyd Quits

From Mountain Xpress Twitter Feed:

RT @mxnow Leslie Boyd sez: "Today is my last day" at Citizen-Times."Will do health care advocacy and education full time." bit.ly/3cifm1

Jason Sanford at Ashevegas relays Boyd's complete statement.

Today is my last day at the Asheville Citizen-Times. I have chosen to step down -- I was offered the chance to stay -- because it's time for me to turn to health care education and advocacy full time. This lousy, broken health care system we have has killed more than a quarter million people since the turn of the millennium...

RELATED

Leslie Boyd
Tim Peck | July 23, 2009
Asheville Citizen-Times reporter Leslie Boyd has violated the code of journalistic ethics by participating in partisan political events as an advocate while also covering the story for her employer.

Unstated Policy At AC-T: See No Evil
Erika Franzi | July 31, 2009
Mr. Randy Hammer, president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times, claimed rather weakly in our phone conversation yesterday to have no personal knowledge of Ms. Boyd advocating a political position in the community.

Turn Yourself In

From the White House:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there. . . These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

---

From: Tim Peck
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:03:14 PM
Subject: flag: fishy views

Dear Minister of Propaganda,

I am turning myself in because I believe my views on socialized healthcare to be fishy.

We do not need single-payer healthcare.

I believe that no one has a right to the labor, property or innovations of others. No one has a right to interfere in a person’s ability to use his own judgment and freely contract with others.

The government has no role to play in healthcare. It is government interference in the healthcare marketplace has caused our current problems with cost and accessibility.

I advocate a free market in healthcare and insurance. Free minds, free markets, individual rights.

The government should not be defining our healthcare options. We have the right to act freely. We have the right to complete marketplace freedom to voluntarily buy and offer health care services on mutually agreeable terms, without government coercion. We also have the right to *not* purchase insurance if we so choose, and to *not* pay for the healthcare of others.

Government is currently violating these rights in various ways. The only valid reform is full restoration of these rights.

To understand rights, read The Nature and Source of Individual Rights by Ayn Rand.

Furthermore, I don’t need health insurance companies to care about me. I don’t need any businessperson in any industry to care about me.

I only need entreprenuers seeking profit in a free market to create valuable products and services for which I am willing to voluntarily trade to our mutual benefit. I also need a government that is capable of performing its only legitimate purpose, and that is the protection of individual rights against force, fraud, and predation by others or by the government itself.

Individual liberty and objective rule of law in a free market. That is economic liberty. That is political liberty. And that is not what we have today — in healthcare or any other industry.

Instead, we suffer government interventionism; and that is the source of our economic woes.

Please instruct me on which camp to report to.

Thank you.

**UPDATE** August 17, 2009

Obama Shuts Email Tip List
WASHINGTON -- The White House on Monday shut down an email account set up to collect tips from Americans on "fishy" claims about President Barack Obama's health-care plan, as congressional Republicans raised new concerns about why some Americans received an unsolicited email from the White House last week.

RELATED



John Cornyn On the White House Snitch Program




Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?
By Yaron Brook | ARI | July 31, 2009
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s ‘reforms’ will only expand that intervention.

Recess Rally

North Carolina Recess Rally

The Nationwide Recess Rally takes place on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009. If you believe your liberty, your hard earned money and your way of life is under attack through dangerous healthcare legislation currently being proposed, get to your local Representative office on August 22nd and make sure he/she knows.

Asheville Recess Rally
August 22, 2009, Noon
Rep. Heath Shuler's Office
356 Biltmore Avenue, Suite 400, Asheville, NC
Voice: 828-252-1651, FAX: 828-252-8734



The White House video rebuttal to the above by former ABC News journalist Linda Douglass is worse than silence.

**UPDATE** August 2, 2009

Two Sides Take Health Care Debate Outside Washington

With Republicans mobilizing against the proposed health care overhaul, President Obama, Congressional Democrats and leading advocacy groups are laying the groundwork for an August offensive against the insurance industry as part of a coordinated campaign to sell the public on the need for reform.

The effort will feature town-hall-style meetings by lawmakers and the president, including a swing through Western states by Mr. Obama, grass-roots lobbying efforts and a blitz of expensive television advertising. It is intended to drive home the message that revamping the health care system will protect consumers by ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions.

RELATED

Crowd rallies against federal health care plan
Josh Boatwright | Asheville Citizen-Times | Aug 4, 2009
About 100 people gathered in the parking lot of Ryan’s steakhouse on Brevard Road for the rally organized by the Americans for Prosperity Patients First campaign, which is leading a bus tour across the state.

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?
By Yaron Brook | ARI | July 31, 2009
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s 'reforms' will only expand that intervention.

Pro-Liberty Health Rally Draws Hundreds
Ari Armstrong | July 28, 2009
Hundreds of people came to the state capitol in Denver today to protest the political takeover of medicine endorsed by Barack Obama.

What 'right' to health care?
John Lewis | Raliegh News & Observer | Aug. 01, 2009
After 50 years of increasing government interventions, through a maze of agencies that now control half of all medical dollars in America, the financial mess is getting worse.

Federal Revenue

Source: White House Office of Management and Budget.

County Zoning

Buncombe County Commissioners
County Planning Building
46 Valley Street
August 4, 2009, 4:30pm
Public comments will be taken starting at 6:00pm.

"The main focus is on the Let Buncombe Vote on zoning effort. We need people to attend and any that would be willing to speak regarding being able to vote on zoning in Buncombe County. Wear red."

ObamaJoker T-Shirt

RELATED

gordondsmith @timothypeck By casting Obama as a psychopathic killer, do you suppose you might incite violence? It's a free country and all, but c'mon.

RT @HeyTammyBruce Flashback: President as Joker was just fine with liberals when Bush was the subject. http://is.gd/218G2

timothypeck FLASHBACK: Man hangs Sarah Palin effigy by noose. http://snipr.com/oowzs Fire hits Palin's church in Alaska. http://snipr.com/oowq2

The Joker

2 Obama officials: No guarantee taxes won't go up

President Barack Obama's treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul...Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama's intentions about taxes.

RELATED

Transcript: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
ABC News | August 2, 2009
STEPHANOPOULOS: The President has said that taxes won't go up for any Americans earning under $250,000, but it doesn't appear that he's going to be able to keep that promise if you're going to bring the deficits down. GEITHNER: George, we can't make these judgments yet about what exactly it's going to take and we're going to get there.

Obama’s Pledge to Tax Only the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything
Jackie Calmes | NYT | July 31, 2009
Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.

Hate Mail

Here is some hate mail received today from the wife of Republican candidate for Asheville city council and theocrat Ryan Croft. Apparently, Croft is determined to make all the right moves as he sets just the right tone for his campaign.

From: "Tinkerbell0968@gmail.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2009 1:52:13 PM
Subject: Fair warning.....

Mr. Peck,

My name is Rebecca Croft. I just looked at your website Et in Arcadia ego, you have a photo with a FALSE heading on it with my husbands photo. (a campaign photo) I believe you have been asked to leave my husband alone. You are not even in the race for City Council. I believe you told Robert Malt that you would step off so to speak. Well, you were given an opportunity to do so, I am sending this message to you as fair warning that I will take action on this starting this afternoon. I have a very close friend who is an attorney, and it is sad that your pathetic life has reduced you to this, but there is no other recourse. This is SLANDER and misrepresentation of my husbands intentions in obtaining a seat on City Council. I will also begin phone calls to Robert Malt and several others who vowed support against any future childish attacks on my husband. You Mr. Peck, are a pathetic human and a waste of flesh. You are a sick man, and I think you should go back to Atlanta where you came from and stop sucking the life out of our beautiful city. Go freeload somewhere else, somewhere where you can actually BE King of The Universe. I pray for you everyday. You are in desperate need of therapy.

The publication on your EGO website was dated July 24th, that was well past the conversation you had with Robert Malt. You may be used to dragging people down your ridiculous path, but this is the wrong family to pull into false representations on the internet. This will be the only warning you receive, and may God himself be with you, you are going to need Him.

Rebecca Croft

Thanks Tinkerbell. I'm glad you won't be contacting me any more. You're an idiot.


P.S. Twitter personae Mad Maxs Girl gives me some love.

**UPDATE** August 2, 2009

Tinkerbell responds:

From: "Tinkerbell0968@gmail.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2009 10:00:59 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Fair warning.....

No YOU are an idiot and a PARASITE!!!!!! Go back to Atlanta you dirt bag

Fill your pathetic websites....you hide behind that keyboard like some stupid ass journalist!!!! Sissy boy!!!! Punk

Lovely. I expect I'll keep hearing from Tinkerbell like a yapping Terrier.

Why We Fight

Jake writes:

"This isn't conspiracy theories, this is about large corporations expanding markets through the industrial complex, creating new markets and robbing resources. . . Note: The idea in the end of the film [Why We Fight] is there is a conflict between capitalism and our government. The premise is that it is capitalism’s fault we are here. I completely disagree."

You are right.

Unregulated laissez-faire free market capitalism would make this fascistic alliance impossible. Capitalism is the complete separation of economics and state.

This is the error of the left: that whenever confronted by a breach of the separation of business and government, they only see the business side of the equation and absolve government of its essential role in corruption.

No corporation ever created a law. No business ever created a coercive monopoly. It is only with the cooperation of government force that any special interest has an advantage in an otherwise a free market.

This, by the way, is due to the prevailing cultural ethic of collectivism and self-sacrifice. This ethic believes the pursuit of individual achievement and profit to be selfish and, therefore, immoral. The government, on the other hand, is a selfless force for the common good, which is, therefore, virtuous.

This ethic is shared by both liberals and conservatives. This is why conservatives cannot be counted on to properly or vigorously defend capitalism.

It is this ethic that must be defeated before any progress can be made on other more political fronts.

47 Million Uninsured

RELATED

Uninsured in America [video]

Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better? [video]
John Stossel | ABC 20/20 | July 31, 2009